Predictors of Glycemic Response and Change in HbA1c Following Newly Initiated Basal Insulin Among Insulin Naïve Adults With Type 2 Diabetes.

This sub-analysis of the Iran-AFECT study was to determine the baseline characteristics are predicting the likelihood of attainment of HbA1c goal and changing in HbA1c after initiation of basal insulin glargine in insulin naïve people with type 2 diabetes not adequately controlled with oral glucose-lowering drugs. Iran-AFECT was a 24-week, prospective, multicenter, observational study of people with type 2 diabetes initiated or switched to insulin glargine. In this sub-analysis, we included all insulin naïve people. Glycemic response was defined as HbA1c≤7.0% and/or change in HbA1c at week 24. Data on 433 participants were included. The mean HbA1c was 8.9%±0.9% at baseline which decreased to 7.6%±1.2% (P<0.001). By week 24, 36% of the participants reached HbA1c≤7.0%. In univariate analysis, the strongest association was for the baseline HbA1c (r2=0.32, P&lt;0.001). In multivariate analysis, predictors of change in HbA1c were baseline HbA1c (r2=0.29, P<0.001), and dosing of glargine (r2=0.01, P=0.02). The baseline HbA1c was accounting for 88% of explainable variances in HbA1c. The best cut-off predicting glycemic response for baseline HbA1c was 8.5%. Among factors predicting response to initiating basal insulin therapy with insulin glargine, baseline HbA1c is the strongest predictor explaining most of the variances in HbA1c change.